


après moi, le déluge (i must go on standing)

by owlvsdove



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May is the one that finds her eventually, although when she hears a voice outside the stall it is Skye’s.</p>
<p>(The women of SHIELD are in no place to take care of each other, but they do anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	après moi, le déluge (i must go on standing)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope all of this comes out right.

 

This is the only place she has left. The only place without shadows and specters and questions. She strips herself quickly, forgoing neatness and order out of clear and sharp need. She turns the handle towards scalding and steps in. And lets it wash her away.

Jemma Simmons isn’t afraid of water anymore. She can withstand it – or so the past suggests. But it’s still important that she steps in and takes her daily beating. She lets the angry droplets splatter against her. She is solid and they are not. She persists and they drain away.

She persists. And they drain away.

It’s the only place, really. So she cries and cries and cries. Not as loud as she wants – the flood can’t drown out the full volume of her anguish – nor for as long as she wants. But she wraps her arms around herself and heaves and shudders and _cries._

 

 

 

May is the one that finds her eventually, although when she hears a voice outside the stall it is Skye’s.

 

 

 

May shouldn’t have found her. Any other night she wouldn’t have. But this is not a particularly decent night. Rather it’s the kind of desperate four in the morning that was born of a raging, restless midnight. One of those nights when she is all too aware of herself, living and breathing. Aware of her life, and how sometimes darkness flooded it.

No, she shouldn’t have heard the shower, but she catches the faint strains of it and gets curious. It only takes her a second to hear the faintly-suppressed sobs to realize who it is.

She turns immediately. The light in Skye’s room is off but she taps on the door anyway, opens it without preamble. Skye is awake, staring into the darkness; and the sight of it grips Melinda’s lungs.

“Simmons needs us.”

Skye gets up.

 

 

 

Something shifted in Skye when everything went down. It’s made sleep a difficult thing to come by.

But she’d rather not think about it.

She doesn’t startle at the knock on the door, but her eyes are wide when it swings open.

“Simmons needs us.”

That’s enough for her. Skye’s been left in mid-air over Jemma. She has no idea what to do to help her and nothing solid to grab onto that might clue her in. She’d flung herself so far into her training with May she’d hardly been able to do more than hug Jemma wordlessly and hope that she understood.

The two of them walk quickly towards the bathroom, pushing open the door carefully, quietly. Jemma is crying. Her clothes are flung all over the floor, which is disturbing in itself. She’s usually so neat.

She’s barely been holding it together, it seems.

 

 

 

Jemma must get the sense that they are out there, because she’s quieted down a bit. May has been rummaging around with just the right amount of subtle noise, looking for some towels.

“Jemma,” Skye says, just barely above the din of the shower. “Come out.”

After a long moment, the shower shuts off with a squeak. All that’s left is sniffling. Skye draws the curtain back slowly and there she is, hunched and holding herself, dripping and drowning. The look she hits them with socks Skye in the stomach. May is holding out a towel, probably the largest towel they have, and Jemma steps into it slowly, lets May surround her with it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers when she’s covered.

“I know you are,” May says steadily. “But there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Jemma doesn’t respond, bunching her mouth worryingly instead. They all fall into silence then; Skye dries her hair and May helps her into her clothes. Careful, caring touches stop the shivering.

 

 

 

May guides them into her bedroom, sacred space as it is. It’s austerely dressed; they’ve been there several weeks now but May isn’t one for making a nest. They can afford a few more comforts here though, deep underground, which accounts for the double bed.

The girls don’t bother to seek permission before climbing into it, and she prefers it that way. Melinda is an adult; she can handle uncomfortable things. But she doesn’t want to see two sets of wide eyes, fresh with pain, ask for a reprieve. She gives it, she’ll always give it. And even if she didn’t want to, there’s nothing she can do about the kids. They are a force she did not account for. Maybe they’ve declawed her, or maybe they’ve brought her claws back out in some protective instinct. Either way, she is changed because of them. So they are welcome in her embrace, even if she doesn’t quite remember how to give it.

They leave room for her in the middle, which is a nice gesture. Whether she realizes it or not, Skye has recognized that this isn’t about comforting Jemma alone, corralling the scientist on the far side while she climbs in next to the door; this is about the three of them needing each other, needing the comfort of the group.

May gets in between them but she doesn’t lie down, stays upright with her back pressed to the headboard. Her shoulders sag but her mind is quiet. The girls snuggle into the covers, closer into her side. She places a hand on each of their backs comfortingly. If they are startled by her ready affection, they don’t show it.

“It’s not just Fitz,” Jemma says quietly, and May finds herself nodding.

 

 

 

“It’s not just Fitz,” she repeats. “It’s everything.”

Jemma thinks she already had plenty of reason to lose her mind before _what happened_. HYDRA shattered her home, warped and killed her friends, robbed her of her purpose. There’s a slew of new agents crawling around she can’t bring herself to trust. Her identity has been erased, and the only person that remembers who she was before the last few months is in a coma. And it feels like her fault.

Everything is caving in.

 

 

 

“I can’t stop,” Jemma continues, and Skye knows exactly what she means.

Actually, maybe Jemma means crying. Skye means something else. She can’t stop moving. She needs to focus on the mission, whatever that might be now. She’ll follow it, step by logical step, task by urgent task. She’ll follow in May and Trip’s footsteps. She will not stop. She cannot stop. Or the flood will break her bones against the rocks.

 

 

 

“I just want to be strong like you,” Jemma whispers. Melinda’s heart breaks.

“Me too,” Skye whispers, and she sounds incredibly close to crying. Her heart breaks some more.

She feels frozen for a long moment. They survived so much. It’s a miracle, but it’s also not a miracle at all. They are more resilient than she could have hoped for.  

“You are. You are strong like me.”

 

 

 

Jemma doesn’t care how it looks from the outside; they are a family, so Jemma presses her forehead into May’s side and holds on tight until she can feel her lungs working the way biology dictates. She breathes.

 

 

 

Skye hears May murmur something in Chinese; it sounds familiar but she can’t remember what it means. She holds onto the sound of it as sleep takes her.

 

 

 

May won’t sleep tonight. She’s right about it being one of those nights, and she knows how those nights end. She’ll watch over these two women until artificial dawn sets in, safe underground until they wake.

 

 


End file.
